Johanna Ward
Photographed in Scotland and southern England, across all seasons, I shall say goodbye with my strengthening love for you, forever and ever draws on myth, fairy tales, private emotions and environmental destruction. Johanna Ward depicts a story, which unfolds to reflect on love, land, morality and control. Her images reside in a place where time is not linear and the past, present and future find themselves sharing uncommon ground; the beginning is not the beginning and the end is not the end, and like the filing away of our memories, order is in disarray. This exploration generates an allegorical narrative that is both enchanting and haunting, from the snow covered hills seemingly frozen in time to a forest fire raging sending black plumes of smoke into the veiled sky above the treetops.
Woven within the series Ward reflects upon her own childhood experiences of family through vernacular photographs revealing intimate moments of domestic life coupled with objects such as a flower card full of promises and love letters sent in the late seventies.
Also housed within a handmade artists photobook, I shall say goodbye with my strengthening love for you takes two intertwined but unraveling strands to explore the possibilities of narrative using a combination of landscape, still life and vernacular photography to tell a cautionary tale about certain symptoms that ail our time.
The book comprises of 5 individual volumes inside a hand-bound box. Each book unfolds as a concertina with Hahnemuhle photo rag archival paper in a limited edition of 7. Prices available upon request. Each book is made to order. To view a copy please contact the gallery.